The Only Document Written In Jesus’ Own Hand

(Allegedly)

(By Unknown author — Fresco from Varaga St. Gevorg Chapel, FAL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9430217)

One of the most confounding parts of the legacy of Jesus Christ is the fact that he never wrote anything. Everything that Jesus taught was done verbally, and it was only later that his teachings were written down. This isn’t unusual for the time period. Many people were illiterate, and oration was a much more respected art than writing. Still, the lack of written content from Jesus himself has been a source of frustration, confusion, and bewilderment throughout the ages.

Unbeknownst to most people, there is one relic that claims to be the only surviving piece of writing allegedly done in Jesus’s own hand. (Though it is possible that other such writings existed. If they did exist, they have subsequently been lost to time.) If authentic, this would represent the only thing that we have supposedly written by Jesus himself.

The writing is found in the form of a letter sent to a man by the name of King Abgar V. King Abgar was described by Tacitus as a King of the Arabs, and he lived during the time of Jesus. Abgar died in 50 CE which means he would have been in the prime of his life at the same time that Jesus was conducting his ministry in Judea.

Remarkably, both letters survive in their entirety. We have the letter sent by King Abgar to Jesus and Jesus’s own reply.

Abgar’s letter to Jesus reads as follows.

Abgar, ruler of Edessa, to Jesus the good physician who has appeared in the country of Jerusalem, greeting. I have heard the reports of you and of your cures as performed by you without medicines or herbs. For it is said that you make the blind to see and the lame to walk, that you cleanse lepers and cast out impure spirits and demons, and that you heal those afflicted with lingering disease, and raise the dead. And having heard all these things concerning you, I have concluded that one of two things must be true: either you are God, and, having come down from heaven, you do these things, or else you, who does these things, are the son of God. I have therefore written to you to ask you if you would take the trouble to come to me and heal all the ill which I suffer. For I have heard that the Jews are murmuring against you and are plotting to injure you. But I have a very small yet noble city which is…